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Children's television series
Children's television series are television programs designed for, and marketed to children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run in the early evening, allowing children to watch them after Kindergarten or school. The purpose of the shows is mainly to entertain and sometimes to educate. History [[wikipedia:File:Momfer de Mol, Isadora Paradijsvogel, Gerrit de Postduif, Meneer de Raaf, Lowieke de Vos, Juffrouw Ooievaar & Ed Bever.png|thumb|right|240px|Some characters from Fabeltjeskrant|]] Children's television is nearly as old as television itself, with early examples including shows such as Play School, Captain Tugg, The Magic Roundabout, Howdy Doody, Ivor the Engine, Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Flower Pot Men, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In the United States, early children's television was often a marketing branch of a larger corporate product, such as Disney, and it rarely contained any educational elements (for instance, The Magic Clown, a popular early children's program, was primarily an advertisement for Bonomo's Turkish taffy product). This practice continued, albeit in a much toned-down manner, through the 1980s in the United States, when the Federal Communications Commission prohibited tie-in advertising on broadcast television (it does not apply to cable, which is out of the reach of the FCC's content regulations). Though there is some debate on the intended audience, later non-educational children's television programs included the science fiction programmes of Irwin Allen (most notably Lost in Space ), the fantasy series of Sid and Marty Krofft, the extensive cartoon empire of Hanna-Barbera and the numerous sitcoms that aired as part of TGIF in the 1990s. Saturday morning cartoon blocks Saturday mornings were generally scheduled with cartoon from the 1960s to 1980s as viewership with that programming would pull in 20 million watchers which dropped to 2 million in 2003. In 1992, teen comedies and a "Today" show weekend edition were first to displace the cartoon blocks on NBC. Starting in September 2002, the networks turned to their affiliated cable cartoon channels or outside programmers for their blocks. The other two Big Three television networks soon did the same. Infomercials replaced the cartoon on Fox in 2008. The Saturday cartoons were less of a draw due to the various cable cartoon channels (Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, etc.) being available all week starting in the 1990s. With recordable options becoming more prevalent in the 1990s with Videocassette recorder then its 21st century replacements of DVDs, DVRs and streaming services. FCC rule changes in the 1990s regarding the E/I programming and limitation on kid-focus advertising made the cartoons less profitable. Another possible contributor is the rising divorce rate and the following children's visitation pushed more "quality time" with the kids instead of TV watching. On September 27, 2014, the last traditional Saturday network morning cartoon block, Vortexx, ended and was replaced the following week by the syndicated One Magnificent Morning on The CW. See also *Saturday-morning cartoon for an in-depth history of children's television in the United States External links * Children's Television, online exhibition from screenonline, a website of the British Film Institute * The 1950s–2000s Week-By-Week - includes listings and factoids for local/national children's shows. * The future of children's digital television - an interview with Gloria Tristani References Category:Children's television series Category:Television by interest Category:Television terminology